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Re: When to design an attribute in a namespace?

• To: kynn@p...
• Subject: Re: When to design an attribute in a namespace?
• From: "Chiusano Joseph" <chiusano_joseph@b...>
• Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 16:49:46 -0400
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• Organization: Booz Allen Hamilton
• References: <200404211251.i3LCpwf10127@p...>

Speaking for XML Schema: I believe this comes down to whether or not you
would like the attribute to be considered as part of the "vocabulary"
that the schema defines. That is a conceptual criterion - but a more
concrete criterion would be whether or not you want to ensure that, when
the schema is imported into another schema, there is no "collision" due
to the importing schema having a no-namespace attribute of the same
name.

Kind Regards,
Joe Chiusano
Booz | Allen | Hamilton
Strategy and Technology Consultants to the World


kynn@p... wrote:
> 
> In http://www.rpbourret.com/xml/NamespacesFAQ.htm#q5_3, it says:
> 
>   ...the purpose of XML namespaces is to uniquely identify element
>   and attribute names.  Unprefixed attribute names can be uniquely
>   identified based on the element type to which they belong, so
>   there is no need identify them further by including them in an
>   XML namespace.  In fact, the only reason for allowing attribute
>   names to be prefixed is so that attributes defined in one XML
>   language can be used in another XML language.
> 
> This quote suggests that, when designing a schema/DTD one can safely
> let most (if not all) attributes have no namespace (i.e. be
> "unprefixed"); the designer only rarely should need to specify an
> attribute as belonging to a namespace (i.e. requiring a prefix).
> 
> But I am interested in learning to recognize those rare situations
> in which, as a designer, one *should* put a particular attribute
> in a namespace.  This is still very unclear to me.  What are the
> requirements that an attribute must fulfill to be a good candidate
> for being placed in a namespace by the schema/DTD designer?
> Thanks!
> 
> kj
> 
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-- 
Kind Regards,
Joseph Chiusano
Associate
Booz | Allen | Hamilton

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